The voice – definitely feminine, somewhat childlike – originated from a neon-colored mare standing in a bed of wildflowers. She liked the way the breeze, such a respite from that awful summer humidity, shook the stems of irises and daisies at her feet and pushed against her flank. The sensation of it tickled and made her squirm in delight. And plus, she liked soaking up the sun; the last few days had been horribly overcast and the sunshine was more than welcome.

But now she was distracted by something far more amusing than mere flowers. A noise, a strange croak, signaled there was a frog in the area. Which would make sense; the meadow was directly next to a little puddle of a pond, one that was always covered in a slick of algae. Smelly and disgusting, and therefore always fun to investigate.

So she left her post as the meadow’s sentry and trotted briskly over to the southern rim of the water, ears pricked forward to catch any sound from that elusive amphibian. The problem was that the noises it made seemed to skip against the still surface of the pond, echoing everywhere. Her gaze flicked this way and that, but she didn’t see the creature anywhere.

And then something caught her eye, moving in the murky water. At first she thought it to be only some seaweed, or maybe just a trick of the light, but then it stuck its head out of the water. Whirl snorted with delight – not a frog – but something better. Something shelled.

A turtle.

She ducked her head close to the water; her muzzle hovered only a few inches away from that of her new compadre. They stayed like that for a moment, almost as if they were in a trance. Then the scent of the algae finally got to her, she sneezed, and down went the turtle, back to its home at the bottom of the pond. Every so often she could see bubbles rising from were it lay, emerging from its tiny nostrils.